How To Avoid Tears By Cutting Onions Like Gordon Ramsay

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is an endless font of sensible cooking hacks that can be, without exaggeration, total game-changers. He gave us a tip for draining pasta that leads to the silkiest sauce, and imparted an easy way to peel hard-boiled eggs without making a mess. Now, in signature Ramsay fashion, he's rocking our kitchens again, this time with a technique for perfectly chopping an onion without tears. Onions are an essential ingredient in a ton of our favorite dishes, but cutting them tends to lead to more sobbing than the scene with the bees in "My Girl."

In a TikTok reel showing a clip of Ramsay, he insists that leaving the root end on the onion is the key to chopped onions with no crying. He states that keeping the root intact will prevent the onion from "bleeding" and releasing the pungent vapors that make you tear up. He's not making this up: The eye-watering sulfoxides in onion are most densely accumulated in the root. Ramsay peels his onion, being careful to leave the root untouched, then makes a series of fine slices into the length of the onion, getting as close to the root as possible, with a very sharp knife. Then, he flips the onion over and makes two horizontal cuts. Finally, holding the onion together like a tennis ball, he makes neat slices across the width, which, thanks to the previous cuts and the onion's natural layers, produces an even, beautiful dice — with the bonus of no accompanying tears!

If you are particularly sensitive to sulfoxides, you may find that Gordon Ramsay's method of cutting onions produces a pretty dice, but doesn't completely keep you from crying. After all, the sulfoxides in onions aren't completely stored in the root; they are all throughout the onion. First of all, know that some onions are more potent to the eyes than others. Yellow onions and red onions are most likely to get the waterworks going, while sweet onions and white onions are a bit milder.

There are a ton of tricks that folks swear by for successfully cutting onions without crying, but only a few are actually effective. Chewing gum or burning a candle in the same room, for example, are urban myths instead of actual remedies. Getting an onion cold before chopping, either by storing it in the fridge or the freezer, will slow down the enzyme reaction that makes you well up. However, this also inhibits flavor, which is the same reason you maybe shouldn't freeze raw onion. Wearing something that physically shields your eyes, like a pair of swim goggles or even sunglasses in a pinch, is probably the most effective trick, even if you might feel a bit silly while doing it. Masking your eyes, along with Ramsay's method for simple, elegant cuts, is a great combination that will produce gorgeous chopped onions while preventing tears as much as realistically possible.